Godstow Abbey, 8 July, 2007.

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So I spent this past Sunday afternoon and evening at the Godstow Abbey on Port Meadow, about a 45 minute walk from Oxford's city centre. A couple days later, when I managed to get the resulting roll of film developed, I was pleasantly surprised to find that this made it through a nasty case of shutter stickiness, which caused almost 22 exposures out of 36 to come out completely blank. Somehow, and thankfully, I managed to get this one. The sticky shutter has since been remedied (I believe, it's still a tad temperamental), but I learned something important from this particular photograph. Its somewhat of a milestone for me. Point, line, shape, form, texture, pattern, and color are all much more present than any of my other efforts, I think. The shapes of the ruins of the chapel and the abbey wall are all relatively balanced, and the colors are richer than I've managed in the past. The exposure is decently executed, and lo and behold I retained definition in the sky, the stone, and the grass, with one exposure.

Nevertheless, this was still sort of a happy accident, and of course I can do much better. Even so I began to look at what drew my eye to this particular scene so that I may better understand my photographic self. I think ultimately this was a convenient natural occurence of the rule of thirds, for one. Standing and simply looking at this structure, it's quite imposing, but still seems devoid of anything that'll make a great photograph. When you look at it through the viewfinder, things change though, as is so often the case. I seem to have focused on shape here more than anything else, hoping that the exposure would simply be a vehicle for the forms. However, (because I bracketed!! WOO!!) I managed to come out with an exposure that was somewhat of an enhancement, and the colors kind of popped when I first saw it. However, I think that if any merit can be drawn from this shot, it's that it shows a small amount of emerging competency in composition. Exposure is a technical aspect that can be learned, while composition has proved much, much more elusive to me. While this is a good start, I still have quite a long way to go, so I must take what I've learned with me the next time I go shooting in such a way.

Since seeing this photograph, I've developed a fascination with form, and I did about an hour-long shoot around Worcester today. I spent the time trying to pick out any repetition of form, or complimentary shapes that exist in objects I walk past every single day. Doorways, benches, trees, pictures on the wall, classrooms, anything, really. I payed less attention to color, as well, so as to hopefully place the focus solely on my composition. Hopefully this'll help me find my falterings and my emerging strengths. I'll have the prints back tomorrow, so we'll see.

I've also found that I like shooting in harsh light. The print at the top of this post was shot around 3 or 4 in the afternoon, and the sun is still very high in the sky here in Oxford, so shadows are very pronounced, and photos can be far too contrasty if you're shooting facing the sun. Interesting, I suppose. I shall take it farther, hopefully.

In any case, cheers.

Russ